Angiogenesis means a phenomenon that a new vessel is formed from a pre-existing venula or capillary vessel in an animal tissue or organ by migration, growth and lumen formation of a vascular endothelial cell. In general, new vessels are formed and elongated during the fetal period, childhood or growth period. However, after the growth period, a stage that angiogenesis occurs in a body is limited. Angiogenesis occurs under the usual physical condition such as luteinization, ovulate, embryogenesis, placenta formation or the like, furthermore, under wound healing or inflammation restoration. As above, angiogenesis occurs under the healthy condition and plays an important role for tissue restoration. Additionally, it has become clear that promotion of angiogenesis is effective on therapy of a coronary heart disease such as myocardial infarction, arteriosclerosis obliterans or a peripheral vascular disease such as Buerger's disease. It has also been reported that angiogenesis was induced by transplant of marrow cells to perform therapy of arteriosclerosis (Non-patent Document 1). Induction of angiogenesis is important for prevention and therapy of the above diseases.
It is also known that capillary vessels are increased and cause serious damage of a tissue in a lot of chronic diseases such as diabetes. When malignant tumor grows, a tumor cell directly induces angiogenesis by an angiogenesis promoter to obtain nutrition or oxygen which is necessary for growth of the tumor cell. The tumor cell grows more by obtaining nutrition through a new vessel. Metastasis to other organ or part induces angiogenesis and a tumor cell moves with blood flow. As a disease that angiogenesis causes the disease or relates to get worse the state of the disease, vascular disease, inflammatory disease, entoptic neovascular disease, reproductive system disease, central nervous system disease, cancer or the like has been reported (Non-patent Document 2). Inhibition of angiogenesis is important for prevention and therapy of the above diseases.
AK022567 (SEQ ID: 1), BC051856 (SEQ ID: 3), BC053836 (SEQ ID: 5) and BC028194 (SEQ ID: 7) are disclosed on Database of GenBank with proteins which the genes encode. However, the relation of these genes and angiogenesis has not been reported.
[Non-patent Document1] Tateishi-Yuyama, E., et al., The LANCET, Vol. 360, pp. 427-435 (2002)
[Non-patent Document 2] Carmeliet, P., et al., Nature, Vol. 407, pp. 249-257 (2000)